JoshDT91

iTrader: (1)

Does anyone know how much it is to repair a rear main seal? I've heard it could be an o-ring on the distributor too which I assume wouldn't be that hard to do. I am just assuming the worst. I lost a quart of oil in less than 500 miles since the last oil change. It's not burning oil, it seems like it leaks into the flywheel cover, then slowly leaks out of the hole in the bottom of the cover when it's hot. What's weird though is that you never see oil on the pavement under the car while it's been parked. The leak is just annoying if anything, but as leaks go, if you don't take care of it, it can only get worse.

kessler89/2.8

my car is doing the same thing only you see it when you park. you can pick up a rear main seal at your local autozone for something like 12-18$$ (< not sure) as for labor... thats a whole different story i had a guy tell me he'd help me change it for $60 at a local garage.
hope this helps!!

JoshDT91

iTrader: (1)

I am just assuming it's expensive, how expensive I dunno. I just thought to replace the rear main seal you need to disassemble most of the engine.

kessler89/2.8

i think* all you have to do is drop your: y pipe, trans, and oil pan to fix it but i may very well be wrong

JoshDT91

iTrader: (1)

Oh no, you're right about that. Just I know in my car to take the oil pan out you need to take the engine out or lift it up which is not an easy task.

1991tealRSt-topGuy

stupid question but we do have a 2 piece rear main dont we?

IMHO if the leak isnt that bad, i'd just leave it for now

i havent came across a used car yet whose rear main didnt leak just a little


although, if the engine doesnt need to be taken apart (which i dont think you'll need to)
if you can access a lift, its not that hard of a job to do

TomP

Yeah Josh, pull the distributor out first. The o-ring is a "1 inch inside diameter o-ring"; any "real" parts store (not autozone, etc) will have a red box of 'em behind the counter. Bring a ruler with you to make sure they give you the right one.

I bought a bag of 5 for $1.50 out of Pep Boys; they were in the metal hardware drawers by the lugnuts, and were labeled "1 inch inside diameter".

When you remove the o-ring from the distributor body, it'll most likely snap in half. When it does, bend it backwards; I bet you lunch you'll see a million little cracks in the rubber. (It happens with age.) The oil will drip down the rear of the block, and go around the rear of the crank, and upon inspection of the crank from the flywheel cover, it looks like a rear main leak. A new o-ring stopped my leak for good!

The two-piece rear main stopped in '85. '86-up has the one-piece rear main, which means you do have to drop the trans.

Makaveli

my 86 leaks in that area... havent looked into it too much yet, but i think its the rear main seal, could be wrong though, but it only leaks when parked... i take it this is a common prob? or is mine just a screwed car

JoshDT91

iTrader: (1)

I looked around the distributor shaft and I see grease and oil around there so I think I might take a look at the distributor. Oh, and I was reading how to take the distributor out, is it really that hard? It was saying to mark the rotor location before you pull it out and such. I'd like to hope it's the distributor o-ring that's causing the leak.

TomP

Yeah, the rotor moves twice; the distributor gear's teeth are slanted at an angle. First, you might want to unhook the car's negative cable to make sure you do NOT mistakenly crank the engine while the distributor's out!! (If you do, all is not lost, but there's much more work involved.) Then, you remove the distributor cap. Next you'll see the base of the distrib... the flat spot, upon which the module (black, holds two connectors, 4-pin & 2-pin) sits. Mark that with white-out for some relation to an engine component. Then, make a mark on the distributor body again for where the rotor's positioned.

Remove the 15mm hold-down bolt behind the distributor. You might also need to unclip the '86's cold-start-injector wire, push the silver clip "in" and the connector will unclip, then pull the connector off as you're pushing the clip in. Lift the distributor up. The rotor will turn. At some point, the rotor stops turning- make another mark for 'position two'. Then lift the whole sucker out. Search this forum for "distributor rebuild", you might want to do some (or all!) of those steps.

As soon as the distributor's out, put a rag over that hole, and don't drop anything in!!!! The oil pump drive (hex shaft) might come out with the distributor. It goes into a hole in the bottom of the distributor gear.

After changing the o-ring, align the body with the very first mark you made (on the engine), and align the rotor with the '2nd position' mark you made. As you drop the distributor in (might need to wiggle the rotor left-to-right to engage the cam gear and oil pump drive shaft), when the cam gear engages the distrib gear, the rotor will return to the first mark you made. Simple.

All this ensures that your timing will return to normal. You might want to use a timing gun afterwards to ensure that the timing is correct.

The Haynes 82-92 Camaro (or Firebird) book in any Pep Boys or Autozone or etc for $15 tells you how to do all this, with pictures!

Brian K

My rear main seal is out.. Your looking at 200 bucks for a shop to fix it in labor alone then figure the 30 bucks for the marked up park. Now get this for 250 he will also replace the oil pan gasket too.

JoshDT91

iTrader: (1)

Thanks Tom, Advance didn't have the o-rings so they'll have them tomorrow. I'll probably work on it this weekend sometime. My car recently got hit by a pedestrian so it might be in the shop. If anyone wants to read about that one it's subject is "Someone hit my car, they jumped into it".

TomP

Ah; mistake 1; going to advance auto. Look for a "real" parts store, the kind the mechanics go to, where you can smoke a cigarette while you talk to the guys at the greasy counter, etc.

JoshDT91

iTrader: (1)

What do you consider a real parts store? It's better than what I got back home, that is what I have while I am at school here. They got me the right stuff cause I looked it up on the net first then just ordered it there. I mean sometimes they aren't the brightest but I've yet to find a parts store that is pretty smart overall.

TomP

A real store is one that's not a national chain... they've gotta have one around. (No offense to your choice of store, by the way, sorry if I came off like that. I seem to be pissing people off lately without intending to do so! ) I visit a few "real" stores... you won't find many floormats for sale, or fancy carpets, or automatic doors, or new cash registers, or even aisles displaying parts. You'll see a greased up counter, with a bored guy leaned back in a chair, in front of a row of parts look-up books- and maybe one old computer. And these are the stores with a little red box full of every size o-ring you can imagine!

Those guys can get anything, usually, the next day. Places like Pep Boys and AutoZone and etc usually have one warehouse that they need to get parts from. A real store has phone #'s of many warehouses, and can call around, and get the part delivered the next day. Sometimes, if you call them early enough in the morning (say, before 10am), they can get it for you that same day, because the parts delivery guy hasn't come yet.

(laughs) Of course, I've been in some parts stores like this, and the guy can't tell his *** from his elbow. A local garage might tell you of a good store. I still go to Pep Boys and etc for normal stuff, like brake cleaner, hardware, oil, alternators (lifetime warranty, hell yeah!), etc- but if I need special brake parts, like master cylinders, or brake cables, or FelPro gasket sets, or batteries, or etc- I'll go to a real store.

JoshDT91

iTrader: (1)

No, you didn't **** me off. I know what you're talking about. The only problem I have with those places is sometimes they charge an arm and a leg for stuff. When I am not at school I live in Northern Virginia. I tell you there are NO parts places around, and the ones that are around charge an arm and a leg. There isn't even a place to take your old oil, you have to go to the dump to put it in the counties oil dump. The nearest Advance is in DC and the nearest AutoZone is like 30-60mins away. The people around there are a joke, just seems like people who run their cars into the ground and lack to take care of them. One place I use a lot for parts is GMPartsDirect. I've got a lot of parts for my interior from them and some from Ebay. I ordered that Parts and Illustration CD from one of the guys here on the board, that'll be helpful. When I went in to pick up the o-rings the guy tried to give me one o-ring. I was like, uhm this came in a pack of 5. He was like oh I thought they screwed up again and I was like uhm nope. So he comes back with the package and put the one he took out back in. I was thinking, very interesting, very.